Eight Thai soldiers killed in rebel ambush: army

CHANAE, Thailand (AFP) — Separatist rebels killed eight Thai soldiers and tried to decapitate them after ambushing a military convoy in the restive Muslim-majority south Monday, officials said.

It was the single deadliest attack against the military in the region since June last year, when seven troops were killed in an ambush of a security team protecting teachers.

In the latest incident, a powerful bomb overturned the soldiers' humvee in Narathiwat province and tore a one-metre (three-foot) crater into the road as they returned from escorting teachers to school.

Those who survived the blast were shot when they tried to escape, according to Lieutenant Colonel Kannart Nikornyanont, one of the top provincial military commanders.

Militants attempted to behead all eight soldiers. They decapitated the top officer in the group and left the others with gaping stab wounds to the neck, he told AFP.

"They cut off the head of one of the soldiers, while the rest suffered deep wounds that left their heads partially severed," Kannart told AFP.

The officer's head was left near the wreckage of the humvee.

Four soldiers travelling by motorcycle with the humvee vehicle managed to escape injury after a 15-minute gun battle with the militants, he said.

The attack happened around 9:40 am (0240 GMT) in the Chanae district of Narathiwat, one of three provinces along the Malaysian border that has been dogged by four years of separatist violence.

The convoy was part of a security detail that had escorted teachers to their school Monday morning, Kannart said.

Armed soldiers escort teachers to and from school every day in Thailand's south. Educators are often targeted by militants, who view teachers as symbols of Buddhist Thailand's domination of this Muslim and ethnic Malay region.

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said the latest deadly ambush was not an escalation in the conflict, saying it was instead a routine ambush with an unusually high number of victims.

"This kind of clash can happen any time. It is not a serious escalation" of the conflict, he told reporters.

"Authorities will have to investigate and not allow it to happen again."

The southern region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of animosity toward the state.

More than 2,800 people have been killed since the rebellion began in January 2004, with killings growing more frequent and brutal.

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's heavy-handed tactics were widely blamed for exacerbating the unrest in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, but he was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

The generals and Surayud vowed to quell the insurgency with peace overtures to the rebels, an apology over past abuses, the reform of Islamic schools and tougher security.

Instead, they watched as killings grew more frequent and brutal, with both Buddhists and Muslims targeted every day.

An average of 72 people have been killed each month since the military took pwer in September 2006, sharply up from 53 deaths every month before the coup, figures from independent monitoring group Intellectual Deep South Watch show.

The attacks have grown increasingly grisly in recent months, with victims beheaded, mutilated and even crucified in what analysts say is an attempt to spark a backlash and create divisions between Buddhists and Muslims.

In other incidents, a roadside bomb hit another convoy of eight soldiers protecting teachers in neighbouring Yala province, local police said. Two of the troops were hurt in a subsequent five-minute gun battle.

Militants also set fire to three mobile phone towers and a telephone booth in a bid to disrupt communications around the region, police said.